Region: global

One study suggests that although global water conditions may worsen by 2025 due to population pressure, climate change could have a net positive impact on global water resources.
NB! Note that other studies indicate tha...

Over the last 400,000 years the Earth's climate has been unstable, with very significant temperature changes, going from a warm climate to an ice age in as rapidly as a few decades. These rapid changes suggest that clima...

In 1988, UNEP and WMO jointly established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as concern over changes in the climate became a political issue. The purpose of the IPCC was to assess the state of knowledge...

The potential impacts of climate change on the environment and socio-economic systems can be understood in terms of sensitivity, adaptability and vulnerability of the system, and this figure defines these terms.

The maps illustrate the crazy logic of today’s global trade. Exchange is no longer based on local needs or resource availability (in most countries where large amounts of bottled water are consumed, the tap water is perf...

The goods we accumulate today will pile up as waste tomorrow, and more yet in view of the global trends. Projections tell us that there will be 9 000 million people on Earth by 2050. According to the Global Footprint Net...

Industry is the top producer of waste in developed countries. A large proportion of industrial waste is hazardous, because industrial processes often involve chemicals. Cleaner production – reducing the amount of problem...

A growing share of municipal waste contains electronic or
electric products. E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams and makes up approximately 4 per cent of municipal waste in the European Union. In the US,...

According to current forecasts the world’s energy requirements will have risen by more than 50 per cent by 2030. Oil and natural gas will account for more than 60 per cent of the increase. During the same time period ren...

The squares are proportionnal to the estimated amounts of waste generated by sector in 2002, in the OECD countries (in million tonnes). Waste is produced from the very beginning of the life cycle of a product, long befor...

The priority is to decrease the amount of waste we generate.
Only then should we will be proud of the high rates for
recycling some countries report (see examples for glass
and paper). Glass recycling scores best, per...

The rich world consumes more and thus produces more waste. The World Bank classification based on gross national income per capita is an indication of the global consumption level. Over the last two decades the world as
...

At the end of their service life airliners may prove useful in many ways. They often fly as freighters for several years. When finally grounded they are scavenged for spare parts for other aircrafts, or used for training...

More than three-quarters of nuclear reactors currently in
service are more than 20 years old. After an average service
life of 30 years it takes 20 more years to dismantle them.
The spent fuel figures for 2002 are nat...

The marketing and advertising industry is constantly teasing
us with trendy, cool and largely superfluous products.
To judge by investment in advertising, it takes more and
more to achieve the same effect. With all th...

By the 1980s, the international community launched treaty negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme. In March 1989, they adopted the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Move...

The list of products we used to keep for years and now
dispose of instantly is almost endless: tissues, face wipes,
razors, kitchen wipes, serviettes, nappies, plastic bags,
toner cartridges, cameras and barbecues, to...

Mining waste takes up a great deal of space, blights the
landscape and often affects local habitats. By its very nature it can constitute a serious safety hazard. Poor management may allow acidic and metals containing d...

Unscrupulous waste trade became a serious concern in the 1980s due to three converging factors: increasing amounts of hazardous waste; inadequate processing plants; and stricter regulations in the developed world with gr...

It is impossible to detail all the types of waste directly or indirectly involved in manufacturing mobile phones. In developed countries production processes manage to keep sensitive materials in a closed circuit, witho...